Stephen Fry calls for Sochi Winter Olympics to be stripped from Russia

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The Prime Minister has been urged to pressure Russia over violence towards LGBT peopleAFP/Getty Images

Josh White

Published at 4:06PM, August 7 2013

Stephen Fry has written an open letter to David Cameron calling for Russia to
be stripped of next year’s Winter Olympics in Sochi due to Vladimir Putin’s
ongoing persecution of LGBT people.

The letter, addressed to the Prime Minister and the International Olympic
Committee (IOC), said that holding the sporting event against the backdrop
of violence, intimidation and hatred aimed at minorities is akin to the
Olympics being held in Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Germany.

Fry said that was “the stain on the Five Rings... when the 1936 Berlin
Olympics proceeded under the exultant aegis of a tyrant”.